"In early 2009, I was exposed, I lost my job, but I began recovery," Oliver said.

He and his wife, Stacey, worked through the crisis. "We got into counseling, got into a recovery process," Oliver said.

After they went through counseling and recovery, they started counseling others through weekly support group meetings at the Church at Brook Hills. "I'm a recovering addict; I know the shame people feel," Oliver said.

With internet pornography so easily available, the problem of porn addiction is widespread, including among pastors and church staff members, Oliver said.

"It's pretty overwhelming," he said.

'Addicted to Porn'

On Sunday, Aug. 20, Awaken Recovery will present a documentary, "Addicted to Porn: Chasing the Cardboard Butterfly," at 6 p.m. at Rosewood Hall, 2850 19th St. South in Homewood.

The target audience is parents, church leaders, counselors, teachers and coaches who work with older elementary, middle school, high school students at risk for exposure to pornography.

"God has a design for sex that's awesome," Oliver said. Pornography inhibits and interferes with that plan, he said.

"This is a counterfeit; it cheapens it, reduces intimacy; this is going to hurt your ability to have healthy sex later in life," Oliver said.

About 70 percent of teenagers say in surveys that they've been exposed to hard-core pornography, Oliver said. "There's kind of no escaping it," he said. "We've got to get over the naive way of thinking. If your kid's 10 years old, he's probably already seen some type of pornography."

Can parents protect kids?

Parents are often behind the technology curve that allows their children to be exposed to pornography.

"We want to focus on the next generation of our kids that are not yet addicted," Oliver said.

"When you see how early kids start to see it, it's a big problem," he said. "Sexuality is awesome and porn cheapens it and undermines the ability to have healthy relationships."

Children have increasingly unfettered access to internet pornography through smartphones and home computers.

"A majority of parents would agree their kids don't need to be looking at it," Oliver said. "Kids have all the savvy but not the discernment to use the technology wisely."

But sometimes the parents are being outsmarted by their savvy kids.

"A lot of parents get embarrassed to let them know they don't know what they're talking about," Oliver said. "The technology is changing faster than you can keep up with it. There are so many new apps. A lot are designed to protect covert web activity. Impulsivity is developed."

Even savvy parents have the odds stacked against them.

"No matter how well you try to keep kids from seeing it, there are things they are going to see," Oliver said. "You've got to protect and prepare: Prepare them so when they see it, they know what to do."

Creating an open dialogue about sex can help parents prepare their children.

"We need to be talking about sex early and often in an age-appropriate way," Oliver said. "Teach them differences between boys and girls, proper names of body parts, so that by the time they hit puberty, they have been talking with their parents for years. They're not nearly as likely to be fearful of asking questions. The biggest tool is encouraging a safe, open dialogue where parents say, 'You can ask me anything.'"

Porn in the church

Going to church provides no immunity when it comes to a society saturated in pornography.

"It's a very significant problem in the church," Oliver said. "The problem is getting worse not better."

Beneath the surface, the porn problem is there.

"If you compare evangelical Christians and those who don't go to church, the stats about porn use are virtually identical," Oliver said. "You get as many people in the church looking at pornography as outside the church. Sometimes more hyper-fundamental churches with oppressive spirituality create isolation, and isolation is a big driver. People who feel isolated are more likely to look at porn. It's really heavy within the church. Sixty percent of male Christian leaders said they looked at porn within last week; 40 percent of females."

"A church usually reacts only after something has blown up," Oliver said. "By that point, the damage is so severe, the damage is irreparable. It's a very reactive stance. This is already going on in droves. A prepared response is always better."

For Oliver and his wife, the trauma of dealing with his porn addiction was painful.

"We've been married 25 years; we were married 17 years when it blew up," Oliver said. "My wife had no idea. She was deeply traumatized."

Restoring the fallen

It's hard for people who have a problem to seek help.

"If someone confesses, 'I've got a problem,' most of the time it's an automatic pink slip," Oliver said.

"I was fired. It was appropriate that I got fired."

But suddenly, the couple was alienated from the spiritual community they had been part of for 11 years.

The counseling groups at Brook Hills are strictly segregated by gender. Men have their own support groups; women have their own support groups.

"They don't mix," he said. "They don't do mixed groups. There is some couples coaching."

His wife, Stacey, works with women going through counseling and group support.

"She was absolutely devastated," Oliver said.

After leaving their former church, the Olivers began attending the Church at Brook Hills. Former Pastor David Platt and current Pastor Matt Mason offered support.

"He (Platt) and the elders involved in Restoration process, they saw us at our lowest, and they saw us getting better," Oliver said. "They were the first people to support us."

Pastors need to be willing to address the problem, or at least bring in experts who can address it, he said.

"There's already an assault on our sexuality," he said. "If we don't have a couple sermons a year on Sexuality, porn, purity, honesty, confession, accessibility, we're not doing our job. Churches need to get to know subject matter experts. We've gotten to know the therapists who are phenomenally good at treating sexually addicted people."

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